Historic Sites

The Du Bois Memorial Center for Pan-Africa Culture

A source of inspiration to many, this Centre now houses a research library and gallery of manuscripts, as well as the grave of this famous African-American scholar and his wife.

Somewhere in the recesses of the City of Accra called Cantonments, where the calm air, the cool trees, and the sunshine combine to produce a unique serenity; where the songs of the birds provide a sort of euphoria; there, in that tranquillity, squats a house, No. 22 First Circular Road, which has been dedicated and consecrated to the memory of a man who loved Africa where he traced his roots, a modest man, but whose life and works raised him above ordinary men and placed him among the great men of all time - Dr. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois.

It is the W. E. B. Du Bois, Memorial Centre for Pan African Culture dedicated to the life of a man who spent greater part of his life in the struggle for the emancipation of the black man through Pan Africanism.

A house declared a National Monument by the Government of Ghana where the remains of the man, Du Bois and the ashes of his wife, Shirley, rest in a peace – enshrined, that their memory will live among men and women in this generation and beyond.

But, more significant too, House No. 22 First Circular Road, Cantonment, was the dwelling of Dr. Du Bois during the epoch-making last days of his life, and it was here, on August 27, 1963, that he breathed his last.

The black and white rectangular building sits in the middle of raised walls that form a large magnificently landscaped compound dotted with trees, flowers, pathways, and aquarium, with two gates in the Western and Northern walls.

Inside, the hall is decorated with the portraits of some celebrities of Ghana and Africa. There is also the display gallery for manuscripts, other Du Bois Memorabilia, and research library of his treasured books and other great writers.

A special plaque mounted on a concrete contrivance welcomes the visitor with two inscriptions from the Du Bois poem “Children of the Moon.

I am deadYet Somehow, Somewhere,In Time’s weird contraction,May tell of that dread deed, wherewith I brought to children of the MoonFreedom and vast salvation.

I rose upon the mountain of the moon I feel the blazing glory of the sun,I heard the song of children crying“Free”I saw the face of Freedom And I died